Florida: Seminoles Illegally Running BlackjackState Wants Games To Be Stopped While New Deal Is Negotiated |
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A compact with the state of Florida that has given the Seminoles the exclusive right to offer blackjack at its casinos expired this summer, and now that a grace period is over Florida is trying to shut down the games, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The state filed a federal lawsuit Friday, claiming that the tribe is breaking the law. The Seminoles say that Florida wants too much money from them in a new deal. The previous compact, which was negotiated five years ago, guaranteed Florida more than $1 billion.
“As of today, under the existing compact, the Seminole Tribe of Florida is now illegally operating their banked card games,” Ken Lawson, the secretary of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said in a statement. “In accordance with the existing compact, the state is asking the court to order the tribe to cease operations.”
The tribe plans to continue running its table games despite the lawsuit.
The tension between the two sides comes not long after Las Vegas Sands Corp., the largest casino developer in the world in terms of revenue, abandoned its lobbying efforts to build a multi-billion-dollar casino in South Florida. “As long as the [Seminole] tribe is influencing the gaming landscape, there will never be room for us,” a Sands lobbyist told SaintPetersBlog.
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